


Not A Human Being

by TUNiU



Series: Let's See How Many Endgame Fix-its I Will Write [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 06:48:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18935611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TUNiU/pseuds/TUNiU
Summary: Another Endgame fixit for Tony Stark. Remember how Yon-Rogg gave Carol Danvers a blood transfusion...yup Carol remembers.





	Not A Human Being

**Author's Note:**

> As I write this fic I am reminded of a lovely Tony Stark video on YouTube. Machine by yunuen

Tony stared at himself in the mirror. There was a tiny spot of blood now blooming from where he nicked his jaw shaving. The blood was blue. He watched it well up until the bubble fell, the blue streaking down his skin into his beard. He put the razor down next to the sink and reached out with his hand shaking. His left hand constantly trembled now, not from the post snap trauma that had lost him his right arm, but from the constant years of struggle and stress. Unfortunately it was the only hand he had now until he finished building the replacement for his right. The shaking make shaving difficult, but he couldn't let anyone else near his neck with a razor. He just couldn't. So he would just make do with a lot of nicks for now

He drew a finger through the blood. The blue spread like ink across his fingerprint. He rubbed it between his fingertips. It felt off. More liquidy than he was used to with red iron-based blood. He licked it. The taste of pennies bloomed onto his tongue. He tried to swallow it away. It should be iron not copper.

He knew enough about biology. It didn't make sense. His lips and tongue were still red, the insides of his mouth and eyelids too. He blushed red. His skin flushed red with exertion or pressure. But the moment that skin broke, blue blood came out. He was now the only vertebral life form on Earth with haemocyanin as the oxygen transport.

"FRIDAY, show me again," he told his AI, who even now lived as his home by the lake.

"Boss," she chided softly.

"Just show me, internal view." He didn't want to wake Pepper, sleeping in their bedroom.

A video flickered to life across his vision. The sensors in his arms and neck still in place from over a decade ago faithfully routing FRIDAY's signals to his brain. His body's internal HUD was rudimentary, stymied by his own biological constraints, but it was enough that he could watch a video in the privacy of his own mind, though he still preferred the external HUD of the Iron Man helmets for battle.

The video started as body cam footage from the Iron Spider and Rescue suits, shots cobbled togther from the best angles.

"We won, Mr. Stark. We won, you did it, sir, you did it." Tony watched as Peter sobbed over his own body. He watched himself hold Pepper's gauntlet as she said, "We'll be okay."

He watched himself die.

The angle and shot changed to War Machine's helmet cam as Rhodey flew into the scene followed by a dirtied and blue-bloodied Carol Danvers. Carol took two steps towards Tony's corpse and stopped, head tilted. "No. Tony?" Rhodey gasped out. "Oh god."

As the heroes all realized what had happened more and more came walking up, to see. Soon Tony's corpse was surrounded by every person still standing. Peter and Pepper stood over him, in the circle of people, holding each other in their tears. Tony hadn't wanted them to meet like that.

"I might be able to save him, maybe," Carol whispered.

Rhodey turned to her, "How?"

"A transfusion of my blood might save him, it saved me."

"You have blue blood," Rhodey pointed out.

"So will he, if it works. I wasn't born like this."

"We need a portal to my lab," Shuri shouted to the wizards now working on the injured. One of the wizards hands flew and opened an orange portal, through which lay Wakanda.

The video included a scene where a still battle stained Rhodey took Carol aside in the Wakandan palace. She told him the history of how she was born human and received a blood transfusion from her Kree commander.

“Will he have powers like yours?” Rhodey asked.

Carol just shook her head. “My powers came from exposure to the tesseract drive. He'll just be a normal Kree.”

“He’s used to being a normal human,” he said.

“It’s not that big a difference,” she shrugged. “We’re all people. It doesn't matter what we look like.”

“You need to tell us now. Are you sure this will work?”

“It’s not like he can get any deader.”

The video cut to days later. It was a ceiling camera view, from the corner of the room pointed down. It was enough that Tony could see himself in Barnes old stasis tube. He looked like hell. He looked like they just placed his corpse there straight from the battle. Pepper stood over his tube, one hand caressing the glass over his face.

Rhodey stepped up to her and put his arm around her shoulder. "You don't have to decide now," he told her. “It’’s going to take months to collect enough blood from Carol.”

"Morgan keeps asking for him, I dont know what to tell her." Pepper choked out through tears. "I can't just....he hated what they did to him in Afghanistan."

"This isn't surgery in a cave."

"It's still without his permission. I know that above all else he would want to see Morgan grow up. But this is such a big change."

Pepper turned and hugged Rhodey.

"C'mon ever since he started being Iron man, he's been more than human. Just now it will be biological instead of technological."

The video hovered in midair, overlaid in the visual cortex of his brain. Tony swiped away the video that played only in his head. His sensors interpreted his movements and the video disappeared.

Rhodey was right. Ever since that cave all those years ago, Tony was more than human. The suit used to be a high tech prosthesis controlled by verbal and mechanical commands. Then it became synced to his arms, summonable at will. Each iteration shaved seconds off the throughput reaction times. Now, the software was in his brain. He controlled the nanites by will. They were as much a part of him as his remaining arm.

So, yes. He was used to being more than human. But now he wasn't even human. Now he was other, alien. And he didn't know how he felt about that.

His ruminations led him through the finishing of his morning grooming, led him through making breakfast, led him to Morgan's bedroom. Morgan lay sleeping under her purple blanket. One arm extended over the bed and her stuffed platypus lay on the floorboards.

Tony walked into her room and sat down next to her on the bed. Her wispy hair lay every which way. She was so big now. She was still so tiny. It was a very strange dichotomy. In a moment he would wake her, and together they would wake Pepper. They would eat breakfast together and clean the dishes. Pepper would go to work. He would do the laundry. Morgan would color and play with her toys. She would read her books and ask him for help with hard words. Morgan did not care one bit that he wasn't human anymore. She was sad when she saw him the first time without his arm. But she just kissed his owie and told him she would hold his stuff from now on.

It really didn't matter how he felt about himself. Which he still couldn't work out. Morgan loved her dad. Tony loved his daughter. He didn't belong to himself anymore. Not since she was born. He was Morgan's dad. He could work with that.

**Author's Note:**

> This came from 2 ideas. One Carol now has blue blood even though she was originally human. And 2. Tony's interface with the suits are too fast to be anything but a mental connection.  
> So he is kinda used to the idea of being more than human.


End file.
